Page 44 of The Guardians of Dreamdark (Windwitch #1)

That night Talon dreamed of flying, as he did most nights.

But when Calypso woke him a few hours later, he was filled not with longing or disappointment as he often was on waking to his real wings, but with an idea.

His eyes snapped open, and he stared unseeing at the dust drifting overhead as an image spun slowly in his mind.

An image of all twelve glyphs for flight joined into one exquisite pattern, a pattern he was certain had never existed before in all of time.

A new spell for flight, which he would use to knit his next skin.

Magpie dreamed she was pursued by darkness, and in the dream she stood and let it steal over her like a numbing tide.

She tossed in her sleep, murmuring. All around her the emptiness spread like a devastated sky, its dead and dying stars all but extinguished.

But then in her dream she held aloft a light, a pure and piercing light, and those sparks flared in answer, one by one, and began to shine.

She turned in a circle, and they were everywhere.

She walked on with her light, and they began to fall into step behind her, and all night long in her sleep she walked through the darkness, until at last she found the edge of it and stepped back into the world.

They filed out of the emptiness behind her, one by one: Poppy, Maniac, the tattooed warriors, even the fishermen, their turbans fallen sadly askew on their huge human heads as they came blinking back into the light.

She woke with a gasp and sat straight up, expecting to see them all around her, but she saw only Talon lying on his back, staring at the ceiling with a look of awe.

He turned slowly to her, and when their eyes met, they were shining, bright with dreaming, filled with new magic, new ideas, and new hope.

“I think I know what happened to them,” Magpie said. “The Blackbringer’s victims, I think I know how to save ’em!”